Lord of the Flies Themes Analysis Essay Example

When corruption rises over the voice of authority and all else is abandoned how will the once prestigious fall from grace? This question is explored in William Golding’s psychological fiction Lord of the Flies. William Golding worked as a philosophy teacher at Bishop Wordsworth school in Salisbury. However, during WWII he served as a royal navy lieutenant upon a British destroyer. In this position he was constantly forced to confront the monstrosities produced by his fellow men. The threat of nuclear war made Golding question humanity at its roots; this provoked him to write his most prominent novel Lord of the Flies. William Golding created a book that displays the themes of rules and order, civilization vs savagery, and loss of innocence. 

The first theme shown in Lord of the Flies includes rules and order as displayed in the first few chapters. In the beginning the boys sat introducing themselves when Ralph picked up the conch suggesting the idea of a chief. Naturally the others agreed and voted for Ralph to take on the role of leader. “We’ll have rules, not rules!”pg 33 “and another thing we can’t have everyone talking at once we will have ‘hands up’ like at school.”pg 33 “Ralph blew it and he was big enough to be a link with the adult world of authority.”pg 59. The first quote shows a new society where the boys are excited to build the promise of order. The second quote shows how the boys are using the society they came from to make their own form of order that makes sense for them. Finally in the last quote the boys choose Ralph because he was the first thing that brought them together. He is their guidance and is considered as a symbol of authority that was salvaged from the world they came from. It shows how important regulations are to the boys as to how much they are displayed in the first few chapters. 

Civilization vs Savagery is a topic often shown in reality and in Lord of the Flies. The boys wrestle with the idea of anarchy with freedom from labor and the idea of holding onto their reputations as distinguished school boys. Savagery begins during the meeting that takes place in chapter five. Jack disregards the rules while Piggy acts as a voice of reason however, Jack's power has already corrupted the majority of the boys. Jack leaves with his own group to start his own clan. On page 92 Ralph says “If I blow the conch and they don't come back then we've had it.” Later, in chapter seven the boys were pretending to hunt Robert as a game in celebration of Ralph wounding his first bore; However, it gets too out of hand on page 115 “Even Ralph was fighting to get near, to get a handful of that brown vulnerable flesh. The desire to hurt and squeeze was overmastering.``In the first quote it shows the loss of power that the symbol of civilization (Ralph) once had dwindling away only to be manipulated to Jack's will as the symbol for anarchy and savagery. It shows that peace is no longer an option; all forces of keeping order have fallen and all those who once obeyed now follow jack.  The last quote shows how even the link to the adult world loses himself to savagery; he is fighting to be a part of the ripping and tearing despite Rogers pleading screams. As displayed in the quotes, it's clear that in this instance the battle between civilization and savagery civilization has been lost. 

Loss of innocents is recurring throughout the novel. It carries a certain impact when the once innocent turn into hardened murders. In Chapter four “painted faces and long hair” Jack explains to Roger the benefit of painting themselves in order to blend in when hunting boar. Jack applies charcoal streaks to his face along with a red substance “He looked in astonishment no longer at himself but an awesome stranger” pg 63 this is one of the key moments in Jack's progression to barbarity. The war paint becomes a representation of cruelty and a sign of caution for Ralph, Piggy, and Simon. Ralph was running on the beach, his last attempt to escape Jack's tribe, when he fell at the feet of a naval officer “Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness in man's heart the fall through the air of the true wise friend Piggy.” This quote displays the weight of the situation crashing down on Ralph. He knows that the lives of two of his dear friends were taken needlessly. Ralph realized that nothing will be the same for him nor the other boys. They are being saved but the cost of their freedom was losing all morality they once had. No longer innocent school boys but hardened killers and it's only at the end that they understand what they've become and what they've caused.

The themes of rules and order, civilization vs savagery, and loss of innocents are shown through numerous examples. It has been shown how in Lord of the Flies William Golding conveyed the topics of rules and order in the form of Ralph's attempts of setting up a society by applying regulations from the world they came from to the island. Golding introduced civilization vs savagery by showing how Jack (the symbol of savagery) left Ralph and Piggy with complete desolation. Finally the loss of innocents when Jack first puts on his war paint all humanity eludes him. Furthermore when Ralph stumbles upon the naval officer right before he can be killed, the realization of what has happened on the island weighs down on the boys as they weep for the ones they lost. In today’s world we’re still put in situations where our grip on morality along with socially acceptable actions slip. We are ruled by dishonesty as well as corruption and many lose their innocence to the bias of people in power so that begs the question when will the so-called prestigious fall from grace?